For
many of us, the school year is about to get underway. If you’ve had
expectations for coaching in place in the past, you can smoothly step back into
old routines. But if coaching is new for your school or there has been
confusion about the coach’s role, a principal-coach agreement might make for
smoother sailing in the year ahead.
A
partnership agreement between principal and coach helps to define the working
relationship between the coach and the principal and outlines expectations for
the coach’s work. Because the partnership between a principal and coach is
crucial to success (Wren & Vallejo, 2009), having a shared understanding of
the work at the outset of the school year can set a tone for inquiry that makes
coaching effective.
A
principal-coach agreement might consider the following:
*How
and when will the principal and coach communicate?
*How
many and which teachers will the coach work with? (preferably all!)
*What
is the scope of the coaching work? (subject areas, topics, etc.)
*What
are the coach’s roles? (modeling, co-planning, data discussions, etc.)
*How
will time be made in the teachers’ day for coaching work?
*How
will confidentiality in the teacher-coach relationship be maintained?
*How
will we measure the effectiveness of the coaching work?
*What
resources are available to the coach?
Codifying
these expectations removes the fuzziness that sometimes surrounds a coach’s
role. Once you’ve arrived at agreement about these important ideas, plan for
how this information will be shared with teachers. When the principal and coach
model a collaborative relationship, the tone is set for similar collaboration
as coaches and teachers undertake their shared work.
This week, you might want to
take a look at:
Letters
from home: Letting family & friends
teach us about students:
The
Bedley Brothers podcast on collaboration:
Coaching
to model the GRR approach:
Retelling
rubric for themes and ideas:
A lesson
plan for using FQR think sheets to respond to non-fiction:
Assessing
students’ understanding during book club using “Think Sheets”:
That’s it for this week. Happy
Coaching!
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